Read this on an Egyptian Travel Website and seems with some of the 70th Anniversaries come and gone it may be interesting to read before the anniversary of Tobruk. Quite a simplistic read however with just enough depth to keep you interested. Egypt in 1882 became a de facto British colony. This remained until 1922, when Britain gave Egypt its independence. However, British troops had the right to stay in Egypt to protect the Suez Canal from any invasion, and this enabled Britain to continue dominating Egypt's political life and to interfere in every aspect of Egyptian life until they were finally ousted in 1952. But in 1940, the British troops were supreme in Egypt. Since the British knew very well the importance of Egypt and its geographical significance, the British army moved the headquarters of their Mediterranean fleet from Malta to Alexandria in North Egypt in the 1930s. Read the rest here: World War II's Opening Salvoes in North Africa
According to Kenneth Macksey's "Beda Fomm", the first shots in the Western Desert were fired by the 11th Hussars, when they trampled the wire covering the border between Egypt and Cirenaica (Libya) with their Rolls-Royce armoured cars, near Fort Capuzzo, close after midnight between 10 and 11 of June, 1940, and went on to ambush a couple of small italian convoys.
